Saturday, January 3, 2015

I think there are 4 key survival concepts that every prepper should work on at all times to place you in the best possible position to survive anything that happens. These are Water, Food, Shelter, and Security. If you have these four bases covered, you will be so much better prepared to survive anything from a flood, hurricane or Global pandemic. We talk about all of these survival concepts on the Prepper Journal, but there is one topic that comes around frequently that generates a substantial amount of debate so I wanted to write an article that focuses on Security.

There are a lot of opinions on firearms as defensive weapons. There are also numerous laws and regulations that govern what you may be able to legally purchase. I believe that all things being equal, the best defensive weapons you can own are firearms and with that I mind I want to discuss what I recommend everyone have if you are considering a firearm as part of your preparedness strategy.

What are the best prepper guns?

A shotgun makes a great first firearm for a prepper.

If you can legally own firearms I believe that there are 5 firearms that make up a well-rounded prepper battery of arms. With these 5 firearms, you will be able to deal with situations that we routinely talk about in a breakdown in society. Even if you never go through any disaster, having these firearms will benefit you in terms of security and firearms generally do not lose value, only appreciate so they are an investment that pays off in multiple ways.

I have listed the weapons below in priority order. If you can only afford one weapon, you should buy the first one on the list and add to your arsenal as your budget/resources allow.

Shotgun – If you can only have one single weapon for home defense in a collapse scenario, I recommend a shotgun. Shotguns are easy to use, the ammunition is reasonably cheap and they can pull double duty as both defensive weapons and hunting firearms. In terms of price, shotguns are cheaper than pistols (generally) and can be purchased a lot of times without the same background scrutiny that you get with other handguns.

Are people dumber than they used to be? Were previous generations mentally sharper than us? You may have suspected that people are getting stupider for quite some time, but now we actually have scientific evidence that this is the case. As you will read about below, average IQs are dropping all over the globe, SAT scores in the U.S. have been declining for decades, and scientists have even discovered that our brains have been getting smaller over time. So if it seems on some days like you woke up in the middle of the movie “Idiocracy”, you might not be too far off. Much of the stuff that they put in our junk food is not good for brain development, our education system is a total joke and most Americans are absolutely addicted to mindless entertainment. Fortunately we have a lot of technology that does much of our thinking for us these days, because if we had to depend on our own mental capabilities most of us would be in a tremendous amount of trouble.

Sadly, this appears to be a phenomenon that is happening all over the planet. As a recent Daily Mail article explained, IQ scores are falling in country after country…

Richard Lynn, a psychologist at the University of Ulster, calculated the decline in humans’ genetic potential.

He used data on average IQs around the world in 1950 and 2000 to discover that our collective intelligence has dropped by one IQ point.

Dr Lynn predicts that if this trend continues, we could lose another 1.3 IQ points by 2050.

One IQ point does not sound like a lot, but when you go back even further in time the declines become a lot more dramatic. For example, a psychology professor at the University of Amsterdam named Jan te Nijenhuis has calculated that we have lost a total of 14 IQ points on average since the Victorian Era.

And we don’t need a professor to tell us that this is true. Just go back and read some of the literature from that time period. Much of it is written at such a high level that I can barely even understand it.

There is other evidence that people are getting stupider as well. For instance, SAT scores in the United States have fallen significantly in recent years…

There appears to be a disturbing trend in American high schools. If we judge the quality of education by the scores that students get on their SATs, then it appears that things are getting worse.

Since 2006, the overall average SAT score has fallen by 20 points, dropping from 1518 to 1498 in 2012. Scores are also down in each of the three categories tested, with reading dropping 9 points, mathematics dropping 4 points, and writing falling 9 points. It’s a fair bet that students aren’t becoming less intelligent, so exactly what is going on?

And this decline in SAT scores is not just limited to the past few years. As the following chart from Zero Hedge demonstrates, SAT scores have been declining in America for decades…

Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia has proposed the restoration of the state’s limit on handgun sales to one a month.CreditMolly Riley/Associated PressThe New York Times

The gun control movement, blocked in Congress and facing mounting losses in federal elections, is tweaking its name, refining its goals and using the same-sex marriage movement as a model to take the fight to voters on the state level.After a victory in November on a Washington State ballot measure that will require broader background checks on gun buyers, groups that promote gun regulations have turned away from Washington and the political races that have been largely futile. Instead, they are turning their attention — and their growing wallets — to other states that allow ballot measures.An initiative seeking stricter background checks for certain buyers has qualified for the 2016 ballot in Nevada, where such a law was passed last year by the Legislature and then vetoed by the governor. Advocates of gun safety — the term many now use instead of “gun control” — are seeking lines on ballots in Arizona, Maine and Oregon as well.“I can’t recall ballot initiatives focused on gun policy,” said Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. “There wasn’t the money.” Colorado and Oregon approved ballot measures on background checks at gun shows after the Columbine school massacre in 1999, but the movement stalled after that.

daclark1911 from Missouri says:There's a four thousand dollar (retail value) NRA Open Class Action Pistol in my safe and next to it a thirty-two hundred dollar self defense/carry pistol built for me by a friend.Both are works of art and hand crafted to aero-space engineering tolerences.Underneath those are some more high grade 1911s valued at fifteen hundred and above.Underneath those on the lower shelf is a bobtailed Colt Officer's 1911 which uses a government model bobtailed mainspring housing.It's the gun all the 1911 guru's said was impossible to build. Now days it's the gun those same guru's and engineers want their hands on to see how in the world I engineered it to work and still retain a functioning grip safety.

Two decades BC, Roman Poet, Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil), used the above line to reintroduce the Roman world, in poetic form, to “Aeneas,” a wandering adventurer whose descendants, according to legend, founded Roman aristocracy.

Aeneas, first written about (again, in poetic form) by Homer eight-hundred years earlier in “Iliad,” was a familiar literary character to at least the educated of Roman society.

Virgil died in 19BC, at the age of fifty. His epic poem, “Aeneid,” was never finished.

In that age, and in Roman society, bearing arms was the badge of free citizenry. It was a right not extended to slaves, other “non-citizens,” criminals, et al.

In a “nation of equals,” bearing arms, then and now, conveys a special dignity and self-respect to the bearer, not achievable in any other way. When this right, for all good citizens, is confirmed and protected by a righteous government, it is tantamount to your nation saying to you:

“You’re an adult citizen, in good standing, within our country. You’re one of us! We, your fellow citizens, have full trust and confidence in your moral character and judgement. We trust you to bear arms competently and honorably for personal defense, and that you, thus armed, will gallantly stand with the rest of us when our nation is threatened.”

6. We acknowledge that “outlaws” don’t have guns in the 28 EU countries, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and other countries with strict gun regulations. We also admit, grudgingly, they are not “tyrannies.”

7. We will stop our insulting comparison of guns to knives, hammers, cars and swimming pools–none of which kill when used as directed. On the same day as the Sandy Hook massacre, 20 Chinese school children were attacked with a knife and none died.

8. We accept responsibility for the armed vigilante movement popularized by George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn. We admit “concealed carry” laws are the biggest revenue infusion since “Obama is going to take your guns.”

9. We will stop defending sales to civilians of non-defensive weapons like TrackingPoint’s “can’t miss” sniper rifle. We admit they are ready-made for insurrectionists, terrorists and hate groups.

10. We regret our work to help suspected domestic abusers keep their guns while under orders of protection. We admit this costs many women’s lives and that our sleazy sales pitch to tell women to arm themselves too just makes things worse.

In the more than two years that have passed since Adam Lanza murdered 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the politics of guns in America has changed dramatically. Or at least that’s been conventional wisdom since President Obama decided to buck a decade-plus of Democratic Party strategy and make gun safety legislation a major issue once again. But the bill Obama endorsed didn’t pass, and according to the FBI, we’re now seeing more mass shootings than ever.

Another, more recent setback for the gun-safety movement was a poll from the Pew Research Center released in early December that found support for “protecting right of Americans to own guns” at an all-time high, besting “controlling gun ownership” by 52 to 46 percent. But as Bryan Schatz of Mother Jones recently reported, gun-safety advocates — not just professional activists, but researchers and academics, too — believe that the Pew poll’s phrasing is deeply flawed, pitting rights against each other that in reality need not be in conflict.

Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America, about the Pew poll, how the gun-safety movement is like the fight for same-sex marriage, and the recent local and state-level victories by reformers that the media has missed. Our conversation is below and has been edited for clarity and length.

Were you surprised by the Pew poll’s results?

No, they didn’t surprise me, because Pew keeps using this old and poorly crafted poll question — and it really perpetuates this outdated idea that we have to choose as a country between protecting gun rights and supporting public safety. But that’s a false choice.

We don’t have to choose between protecting the Second Amendment and measures that have been proven to prevent gun violence. Ultimately, there are responsibilities that go along with gun rights. And measures like background checks, keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people, like domestic abusers, all of these save lives. Pew asks you to choose between the two, and you don’t [have to].

Most Americans don’t know where we’re starting on this issue. The Pew question assumes that people understand that there are background check loopholes and that, every year, 40 percent of gun purchases are made without background checks (because you can avoid having to do a background check by buying from a private seller). So if Americans are going into these questions and answering them without that … context, then the answers are going to be skewed.

Is the belief that it’s an either/or choice something you come up against often when talking with and reaching out to regular people?

That certainly exists, the idea that it’s an either/or [choice], because the NRA and the gun lobby in general has sort of said, Gun ownership should be completely unfettered! It should not be subjected to the same limits as other Constitutional rights like, for example, freedom of speech. (I can’t go yell fire in a crowded theater, for example.) And there’s this idea that because it’s in the Constitution, there should be absolutely no responsibilities written into law that protect other Americans…

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Hillary Clinton takes the top spot on a list of admired living women for the 13th year in a row, according to an annual survey released by Gallup on Monday.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, is considered the most admired living man in any part of the world.

When asked to name a woman they've heard or read about and admire, 12% mentioned Clinton, the former secretary of state, New York senator and first lady.
Eight percent said Oprah Winfrey, 5% said Nobel Peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai, and 4% said first lady Michelle Obama.

Clinton, who's considered the Democratic frontrunner if she runs for president in 2016, has also held the top spot in 17 of the past 18 years. Laura Bush was considered the most admired woman in 2001, not long after the 9/11 attacks.
In the seven decades that Gallup has been asking the question, Clinton has won the designation more than any other woman, including six times more than former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Obama is also continuing a streak, with this year marking his seventh year in a row as the most frequently mentioned man who people admire most. He was given the designation in 2008 shortly after winning election to his first term.
According to Gallup, the U.S. president is almost always mentioned as the most admired man, with only 12 exceptions in the past 68 years.

What we do not know is just how often a child accidentally shoots and kills someone. We looked into the subject earlier this year after a 9-year-old girl in Arizona accidentally shot and killed her shooting range instructor with an Uzi, another shooting death that was so unusual — involving a child, an Uzi and a dead adult — that it was able to break through the noise and actually demand more attention, something that does not happen most of the time with gun deaths. And we were told at the time that the people and agencies who keep an eye on shooting deaths did not know for sure how often it happens.

It is a strange gap, this lack of information on accidental shootings involving children. This data is out there, of course, but the various agencies that compile statistics regarding shooting deaths said it has not been pulled together nationwide. There are media reports after these things happen, story after story after story of such unintentional shootings. And there are some systems that try to pull together the relevant numbers. The National Violent Death Reporting System, for example, combines information from death certificates, medical examiners and law enforcement reports to try to produce such data, but it operates in just 18 states.

The gap here is also accompanied by a larger one: uncertainty regarding the number of accidental shootings overall. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were 32,351 shooting deaths in 2011. Of those, 591 were deemed accidental, the CDC said. But these records rely on causes of death as determined by medical examiners, coroners and attending physicians, which may not be foolproof. A New York Times investigation last year found wildly inconsistent rulings from medical examiner rulings in several states.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

An Idaho nuclear research scientist who had taken her young relatives to Wal-Mart to spend their holiday gift cards was killed Tuesday when her 2-year-old son pulled a loaded pistol from her purse and shot her.

Deputies who responded found Veronica Rutledge, 29, dead in the Hayden store's electronics department in what Kootenai County sheriff's spokesman Stu Miller described as a "tragic accident." Rutledge, who worked at the Idaho National Laboratory, was from Blackfoot in southeastern Idaho, and her family had come to the area to visit relatives.

Rutledge had a concealed weapons permit. Miller said the young boy was left in a shopping cart, reached into his mother's purse and grabbed a small-caliber handgun, which discharged once.

South Carolina’s dubious distinction as the worst state in the nation for deaths per capita due to criminal domestic violence calls for stricter laws against repeat offenders and stronger measures to protect victims, state Sen. Larry Martin says.

He has filed a bill to be introduced early in the 2015 legislative session that calls for harsher penalties against perpetrators who commit violent acts again and calls for revoking gun ownership rights for 10 years of violators convicted of first degree criminal domestic violence or criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature.

That gun restriction is patterned after a federal law that says those convicted of criminal domestic violence can’t own or purchase a weapon again, Martin said.

Violators who don’t get rid of their guns would be charged with a felony, under Martin’s bill.

The bill also requires a felony charge for violators of two or more offenses and increases the sentence for multiple offenses to up to 10 years.

Under current law, the maximum for second-time offenders is one year and for third or subsequent offenses, up to five years.

It also adds under the heading of high and aggravated cases those in which a deadly weapon is used; impeding the normal breathing or blood circulation of a victim by applying pressure to the throat, nose or mouth; committing the offense in the presence of a minor; committing the offense against a pregnant woman; or committing the offense during a robbery, burglary, kidnapping or theft.

It also gives judges latitude to revoke gun rights of a person charged at the high and aggravated level while they’re out on bond.

Statistics for 2014 aren't in yet, but according to the state Attorney General’s Office, 46 people were murdered by a household member in South Carolina in 2013.

Of those 46 people, 38 were women, constituting 83 percent of the total, and eight were men,

Demographically, 65 percent of the victims were white, 33 percent were African American, and 2 percent were Asian. The average age of the victims was 41 years old, according to the AG.

Guns were used in 78 percent of the cases, according to the report.

Martin said South Carolina had the highest per capita death rate in the nation from domestic violence, with Louisiana coming in second. He said he patterned his bill on one recently passed in Louisiana.

Middletown Police Lt. Scott Reeve said a group of friends were looking at a gun that one of the friends had just gotten when James Terrell, 35, of Middletown, accidentally shot himself in the hand.

“He (Terrell) didn’t think it was loaded,” Reeve said. “He has told us the first time he pulled the trigger he had his hand on the muzzle … and he pulled the trigger and nothing happened. He backed his hand off and pulled again and a bullet went through his hand and into his friend that was sitting next to him.”

The bullet traveled through Terrell’s hand and hit the stomach of Aaron T. Johnson, 27, of Monroe. Both men were taken to Atrium Medical Center where Johnson later died, police said.

Police say the gun was a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun that belonged to Dennis Wunn. Reeve says Wunn is legally allowed to own the gun and alcohol is not believed to have been involved in the fatal accidental shooting.

Police are still investigating the incident and no formal charges have been filed, but Reeve said a misdemeanor charge of negligent homicide could be filed against Terrell.

From being an advocate of the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty to pouring money into Washington state’s victorious I-594 gun control campaign, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has come up with a list of the top 10 ‘anti-gunners’ for 2014.

Not surprisingly, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg took the top spot this year for dumping millions into creating Everytown for Gun Safety and also helping to finance the I-594 effort in Washington.

The other nine are:

Paul Allen– The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft and principle owner of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers, he dumped a half-million dollars into the I-594 gun control campaign inWashington State.

Steve Ballmer– Another Microsoft alumni and owner of the L.A. Clippers who added more than$1 millionto the I-594 effort to criminalize perfectly legal activities in theEvergreen State.

Hillary Clinton– The former First Lady and Secretary of State suggested earlier this year that gun owners "terrorize" people by vigorously defending the Second Amendment. She also supported the unratified UN Arms Trade Treaty.

Andrew Cuomo– TheNew York governor who championed that state's Draconian SAFE (for Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement) Act, which is responsible for job losses in addition to penalizing every gun owner in the state.

Bill Gates– This billionaire Microsoft co-founder and his wife contributed more than$1 millionto the I-594 gun control effort, thus helping to pay for one of the most insidious political campaigns inthe United States.

Nick Hanauer– Another elitistSeattle-area billionaire who launched the I-594 gun control campaign and poured more than$1 millioninto the effort. His deplorable effort to exploit the Pilchuck High School tragedy by sarcastically suggesting that, "We need more school shootings" was an offensive new low in anti-gun politics.

Eric Holder– The outgoing U.S. attorney general fought to stall release of thousands of documents related to the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, final losing his battle in federal court this past fall.

Shannon Watts– As founder of the Bloomberg-supported Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Watts has spread disinformation about gun crime and campaigned against laws that bolster personal protection outside the home.

A group of police officers on Dec. 25 pay their respects at a makeshift memorial in the Brooklyn, where New York police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot and killed on Dec. 20 as they sat in a marked squad car. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)Washington Post

But it is time to recognize that adequate treatment for people with a mental disorder is a distinct problem from gun violence. A much better indicator of whether someone will be violent is whether they come from a violent, poverty stricken environment, and whether they struggle with addiction. Eliminating poverty, domestic violence and childhood exposure to bloodshed would likely make a dent in our problem with gun violence. It may even have made a difference in the life of Ismaaiyl Brinsley.

But these are not problems for the mental health system to solve. And neither is the big problem of availability of guns. Among developed countries, the United States has the highest number of guns per every 100 people (88 as compared to 15 in Australia, six in Britain and 31 in Canada). In a 2012 survey, 43 percent of individuals indicated that there was at least one gun in the household.

Patrick Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, is garnering headlines by blaming New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for encouraging protests against police killing of black men which, he claims, has created a political atmosphere that led Brinsley to target the two police officers, gunned down while they sat in their squad car outside a Brooklyn housing project.

This is absurd. For one thing, de Blasio has been a strong defender of New York's police department, but he has also criticized police abuses and supported people's right to protest nonviolently. Equally important, Lynch must know that Brinsley was not making a political statement when he shot the two officers. Brinsley's sister told the media that her brother was "emotionally troubled" and suicidal. "He needed help," she said, "He didn't get it." He killed himself after murdering Ramos and Liu.

If Lynch wants to point the finger of blame for his colleagues' deaths, he should focus on the NRA, not de Blasio. For decades, the NRA has fought every effort to get Congress and states to adopt reasonable laws that would make it much less likely that people like Brinsley would be able to obtain a gun. The NRA even defends the right of Americans to carry concealed weapons in bars, churches, schools, universities, and elsewhere. This poses a huge threat to police and civilians alike.

Henry RollinsLA WeeklyOf all the things that transpired last year, I want to take on the Sandy Hook shooting incident. The actual event is too awful for words but some of the conclusions that were drawn were damn dismal and I think we can do much, much better.

The NRA is comprised of an extremely small fraction of gun owners in America. Some of the more ridiculous statements of the organization's colorful CEO, Wayne LaPierre, might well represent only a fraction of its members' points of view. Where the NRA realizes its power is with the politicians they have bought and paid for.

Personally, I don't believe Mr. LaPierre is all that concerned with my right to bear arms as much as he is interested in protecting my access to purchasing guns and bullets. It's a huge industry and anything that is seen as remotely detrimental to sales has the man vigilantly patrolling the perimeter of his bottom line. The more outrageous things he says, the better it is for business. Anything less -- like rationality, for instance -- would at this point be seen as "soft" by the people who feather his nest. It's not that hard to get your head around.

What is hard to digest is that throughout all of the twists and turns this conversation has taken, it seems to be that the "bad guys" have won the day. Instead of the higher, harder, more morally upright discussion of gun control and mental health issues, many have defaulted to the knee-jerk conclusion that we need a lot more guns. Seeing it this way, we must conclude that the minority has won out over the vast majority and we must arm ourselves against our fellow Americans who would seek to do us harm. We must conclude that we are not really all that free and that we failed as a society.

More guns equaling more safety is a slippery slope, and what makes it so is human blood. Great for weapons manufacturers. Not so great for citizens who potentially find themselves in a crossfire zone with little sanctuary.

Wisconsin Gazette opinionWhat country fetishizes, lionizes, valorizes, idolizes, and sacralizes guns as much as does our United States? OK, possibly Mozambique — the only country with an AK47 on its flag, but really, it's long past time to end this obsessive "My Precious" attachment of Americans to instruments of death.The only logical path, given the clearly decided role of the Second Amendment, is to repeal it. American people are tired of mass shootings and police shootings and family feud shootings and sibling shootings and accidental toddler shootings and teen suicide by gun (highly popular).We are exhausted by the proliferation of death, of threats, of bloodshed, and by the NRA/gun industry moral garbage spewing forth every time someone challenges the ubiquity of guns. Repeal the Stupid Second Amendment. Surround it, grab it, bring it in the back room, pull down the shades, and end it. OK, petition for it, get it on the ballot, and get it done by enough of the US populace, by enough people in enough states, to get it consigned to the dustbin of history.

1st dumbest state is South Carolina: Well now, this is also no surprise. This state is known for having some really stupid laws on the books: a person must be 18 to play a pinball machine; horses must not be kept in bath tubs; a permit must be obtained to fire a missile; it is a capital offense to inadvertently kill someone while attempting suicide; and in case you need to know, it is illegal to give or receive oral sex in South Carolina. The point is, if the people were not so dumb, the laws would not have to be written!